COLUMBIA  UBRARIES  OFFSjTE 

HEALTH  SCIENCES  STANDAHD 


HX64072533 
I      RK66H731919        The  claims  oldenlis 


HOIIvlES 
The   Claims   of  Dentistry 


f?KU 


hl2 


I  ^/1 

Columbia  (Hnitier^ttp 

intljeCttpofMrttigork 

College  of  ^ftpisicians  anb  ^urgeong 
Hifararp 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Open  Knowledge  Commons 


http://www.archive.org/details/claimsofdentistrOOholm 


The  Claims  of  Dentistry 

An  Address  delivered  at  the  Commencement  Exercises 

of  the  Dental  Department  in  Harvard  University 

February  14,  1872,  by 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  M.  D. 

Parkman  Professor  of  Analorrxy 


Reprinted  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  Harriet 

Newell  Lowell  Society  for  Dental  Research 

1918-1919 


KKt^ 


p 

nn 


THE  CLAIMS  OF  DENTISTRY. 

An  Address  delivered  at  the  Commencement  Exercises  of  the  Dental 

Department   in   Harvard   University,   February    14,    1872,   by 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  M.  D. 

Parkman  Professor  of  Anatomy 

We  have  met,  under  the  auspices  of  Harvard  University,  to  recognize 
by  formal  ceremonies  the  entrance  of  a  class  of  students  in  dentistry  upon 
the  exercise  of  their  profession.  We  give  to  this  occasion  the  time- 
hallowed  name  of  Commencement.  Here  ends  the  period  of  pupilage ;  here 
begins  the  life  of  applied  knowledge  and  skill. 

"Commencement"  is  not  a  word  to  conjure  with,  as  it  was  a  century 
ago,  when  it  paralyzed  for  the  day  the  commerce  of  the  neighboring  town, 
and  emptied  all  the  villages  in  a  circle  of  fifty  miles  of  their  black-coated 
and  white-wigged  clergymen.  It  is  not  the  grand  pageant  as  I  remember  it, 
when  the  Governor  made  his  entrance  to  the  academic  precincts  with  a 
troop  of  horse  and  a  cavalcade  of  white-f  rocked  truckmen ;  when  the  Com- 
mon was  covered  with  tents,  as  if  an  army  had  encamped  upon  it,  and  the 
trafficking  and  the  revelries  of  Bartholomew  Fair  were  enacted  on  the 
provincial  scale  upon  the  green  consecrated  to  the  quiet  pursuits  of  learning. 

But  this  Commencement  of  the  Dental  School  has  a  real  significance, 
though  it  makes  little  show,  and  does  not  appeal  to  any  vulgar  interest.  It 
publishes  the  fact  that  a  new  pursuit  has  been  assigned  its  place  among 
those  chosen  professions  which  a  fully-organized  educational  institution 
may  fitly  take  in  hand,  and  provide  for  teaching.  And  you  may  be  assured, 
that,  before  our  old  university  would  take  such  a  step,  its  governing  boards 
had  satisfied  themselves  that  the  time  was  fully  ripe  for  it.  The  dental 
profession  had  achieved  its  success,  and  had  won  its  place  in  the  estimate 
of  the  intelligent  public,  before  its  teachers  were  asked  to  share  the  labors 
and  the  dignities  which  belong  to  the  faculties  of  this  great  institution. 

The  occasion  must  naturally  bring  together  many  who  have  no  other 
special  knowledge  of  dentistry  than  such  as  they  have  gained  while  sitting 
in  one  of  those  magic  chairs  which  fit  alike  the  giant  and  the  dwarf,  which 
would  accommodate  the  visitors  of  Procrustes,  and  suit  itself  to  all  the 
transformations  of  Proteus.  Were  this  an  assemblage  of  dentists  and  dental 
students  only,  who  would  dare  to  open  his  mouth  for  speech  before  the 
members  of  a  profession  in  whose  presence  kings  are  silent,  at  whose  com- 
mand eloquence  is  struck  dumb,  and  even  the  irresistible  and  irrepressible 
voice  of  woman  is  hushed  into  a  brief  interval  of  repose?  Even  if  this 
first  fear  were  overcome,  a  speaker  might  well  hesitate  to  address  an  audi- 
ence of  experts,  who  know  all  that  he  is  like  to  tell  them,  and  a  great  deal 
more.  But  this  hour  does  not  belong  only  to  our  friends  of  the  dental 
profession;  and  they  can  bear  to  listen  to  much  that  is  familiar  to  them 

1 


for  the  sake  of  their  visitors,  whose  knowledge  is  Hmited  to  what  they  have 
acquired  after  the  manner  of  poets,  of  whom  Shelley  says, — 

"•They  learn  in  suffering  what  they  teach  in  song." 

A  few  generalities  are  all  that  can  be  attempted  in  a  discourse  like  this ; 
enough  to  give  some  little  idea  of  what  the  dental  profession  has  grown 
out  of,  and  what  it  has  grown  to ;  a  few  hints  to  make  us  feel  more  keenly 
its  importance;  a  picture  or  two  of  old  superstitions  and  fancies  and  bar- 
barisms to  contrast  with  the  enlightened  knowledge  of  our  own  time ;  a  brief 
mention  of  some  of  the  leading  modern  improvements  in  the.  scientific  and 
practical  departments  relating  to  the  teeth;  an  explanation  of  the  causes 
which  have  kept  the  dental  profession  from  receiving  the  recognition  it 
has  a  right  to  claim;  and  a  vindication  of  its  title  to  the  regard  of  the  com- 
munity, and  to  a  fair  representation  of  its  teachings  at  the  great  seats  of 
learning.  I  mention  some  of  the  points  I  shall  touch  upon  rather  than 
discuss,  not  under  formal  headings,  and  with  strict  adhesion  to  the  order  in 
which  I  have  mentioned  them,  but  as  they  appear  to  present  themselves 
most  naturally 

The  greatest  difficulty  in  handling  the  subject  is  the  extent  of  its 
literature,  and  the  infinite  detail  of  ingenuity  which  has  gone  to  the  bring- 
ing about  of  the  perfection  of  its  mechanical  processes.  The  value  of  the 
teeth  to  human  beings  is  so  prodigious,  that,  as  soon  as  attention  was  fairly 
turned  to  their  proper  management  and  the  methods  of  repairing  their 
losses,  inventive  talent  precipitated  itself,  so  to  speak,  upon  the  new  depart- 
ment of  human  industry.  There  is  no  pearl  in  any  royal  crown  for  which 
a  young  queen  would  give  one  of  her  front  incisors.  And  those  who  know 
what  a  perfect  organ  each  one  of  the  teeth  is,  as  shown  by  the  more  recent 
revelations  of  minute  anatomy,  what  pains  Nature  has  taken  with  its  com- 
plex organization,  will  not  wonder  at  the  estimate  set  upon  it. 

The  teeth,  in  their  relation  to  the  beauty  of  the  human  countenance, 
have  figured  in  poetry  from  the  earliest  times.  "Thy  teeth  are  -like  a  flock 
of  sheep  that  are  even  shorn,  which  came  up  from  the  washing;  whereof 
every  one  bear  twins,  and  none  is  barren  among  them,"  says  the  imaginative 
author  of  the  "Song  of  Songs."  Their  whiteness  has  been  compared  to 
that  of  snow,  of  Parian  marble,  and  of  pearls,  until  verse  is  tired  of  the 
images.  The  ancient  poets  and  satirists  are  full  of  allusions  to  the  beauty 
and  deformity  depending  on  the  conditions  of  the  teeth.  The  ladies  who 
made  it  their  business  to  please,  on  Bentham's  principle  of  procuring  the 
greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number,  had  recourse  to  every  kind  of 
artifice  to  disguise  their  defects,  and  commend  their  charms.  Here  is  one 
of  these  tricks  as  given  by  Athenseus,  in  a  passage  not  cited  by  Duval  in  his 
large  collection  of  classical  quotations  relating  to  this  subject.  I  give  a 
part  of  it  in  English: — 

"They  whose  teeth  are  elegant  force  themselves  to  smile  even  against 


their  inclination,  so  that  the  beauty  of  their  mouths  may  be  seen  by  their 
visitors;  but,  if  their  smile  is  not  so  pleasant  a  sight,  they  hold  a  sprig  of 
myrtle  in  their  mouths,  so  that  it  will  cover  their  teeth  when  they  open  their 
lips,  on  purpose  or  otherwise." 

As  for  the  unfortunates  whose  teeth  were  discolored,  or  had  suffered 
some  of  the  common  changes  that  age  brings  about,  the  satirists  scoffed  at 
them  in  such  coarse  language,  that  their  phrases  are  quite  unbearable  to 
modem  ears.  Even  such  a  personal  remark  as  that  of  the  graceful  Catullus 
would  be  considered  inadmissible  in  our  time :  "Your  mouth  is  full  of  teeth 
half  a  yard  long,  and  your  gums  are  like  an  old  wagon-box."  The  first  cir- 
cumstance— the  seeming  inordinate  length  of  the  teeth — is  a  well-known 
effect  of  age,  which  produces  a  shrinking  of  the  gums.  The  Frenchmen 
talk  of  dents  dechanssees,  unshod  teeth;  and  I  remember  that  Thackeray, 
in  one  of  his  stories,  speaks  of  certain  ladies,  not  very  young  ones,  as  "long 
in  the  tooth,"  among  other  by  no  means  flattering  peculiarities. 

We  have  grown  more  civil  than  the  Romans ;  but  we  know  the  beauty 
of  a  fine  set  of  teeth,  and  the  deformity  of  its  opposite,  as  well  as  they  did. 
It  is  true  that  men  can  often  conceal  the  imperfection  of  their  dental  ar- 
rangements by  letting  the  eaves  of  a  heavy  mustache  overshadow  their 
mouths.  But  to  women,  to  hide  whose  smile  would  be  to  take  away  half 
the  sunshine  of  life,  and  to  whom  Nature  has  kindly  refused  the  growth 
that  would  deprive  us  of  it,  there  is  no  element  of  her  wondrous  beauty 
which  can  take  the  place  of  white,  even,  well-shaped  teeth.  And  as  beauty 
is  not  a  mere  plaything,  but  a  great  force,  like  gravity  or  electricity,  the  art 
which  keeps  it,  mends  it,  and,  to  some  extent,  makes  it,  is  of  corresponding 
importance. 

But  we  must  add  to  this  the  consideration,  that  speech  is  so  largely 
dependent  on  the  perfection  of  the  teeth,  that  our  language,  we  might 
almost  say,  loses  a  letter  with  every  tooth  that  falls.  What  can  be  more 
painful  to  witness  than  the  efforts  of  a  hapless  friend  to  bite  his  consonants 
out  of  the  alphabet  when  he  is  reduced  to  the  condition  of  the  infant,  whose 
boneless  gums  are  unfit  for  any  task  but  the  caressing  pressure  of  the 
maternal  mouthful ! 

And  then  the  humbler,  but  still  necessary  function  of  mastica- 
tion,— how  much  depends  on  the  ease  and  perfection  with  which  this  is 
performed !  You  can  tell  the  state  of  a  village  by  going  to  the  mill.  If 
it  has  enough  to  grind,  and  grinds  it  well  and  cheaply,  you  will  find  good 
farms  and  well-fed  people :  so,  if  you  see  a  good  square  jaw,  filled  with 
good  sound  teeth,  and  moved  by  a  set  of  muscles  that  mean  business,  and 
do  it,  you  will  find,  in  all  probability,  that  they  nourish  a  sound  frame  in 
man  or  woman.  I  have  never  forgotten  the  complaint  of  poor  Walter 
Savage  Landor, — a  sadder  one  than  any  of  the  Preacher's,  it  seems  to  me. 
I  quote  it  from  memory.      "I  have  lost  my  mind,"  he  said ;  "that  I  do  not 


care  so  much  about:  but  I  have  lost  my  teeth,  and  I  cannot  eat."  It  has 
been  my  custom  for  many  years,  when  lecturing  upon  this  part  of  anatomy, 
to  bring  forward  the  skull  of  a  large  turtle,  in  order  that  its  jaws  might  be 
compared  with  those  of  the  human  being  in  very  advanced  years.  The 
sharpened  edges  of  the  alveolar  border  in  the  old  man  show  the  retrograde 
process  by  which  he  returns  to  the  quasi-embryonic  condition,  reminding 
us  of  that  earlier  period  when  he  passed  through  the  scale  of  being,  upward, 
to  reach  the  supremacy  of  which  age  is  constantly  trying  to  deprive  him. 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  the  teeth  have  been  particular  objects  of 
attention  from  the  earliest  period.  The  Egyptians,  who  made  specialties 
of  every  thing,  had  professional  dentists;  and  it  is  asserted  that  artificial 
teeth  of  ivory  or  wood,  some  of  them  on  gold  plates,  have  been  found  in  the 
jaws  of  mummies.  The  teeth  of  mummies  are  said  also  to  have  been  found 
filled  with  gold.  I  do  not  find  any  distinct  notice  of  a  dental  profession 
from  the  time  of  the  Egyptians  to  that  of  Galen.  You  will  permit  me  to 
quote,  in  the  original,  a  passage  which  I  have  unearthed  in  one  of  his 
treatises,  because  it  makes  use  of  an  adjective  which  will  be  found  in  our 
catalogues  and  diplomas,  where  it  was  admitted  after  some  discussion : — 

"Omnes  tamen  istos  communi  nomine  medicos  appellant,  perinde  ut 
eos,  puto,  qui  a  quibusdam  membris,  quorum  praecipue  curam  gerunt,  voci- 
tantur:  hos  namque  ocularios,  auricularios,  dentarios  (ita  dicere  liceat) 
medicos  nominant." 

It  is  a  long  interval  from  Galen  to  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century ;  but  I  have  not  found  any  other  traces  of  a  special  dental  pro- 
fession until  I  came  upon  the  following,  which  looks  very  much  as  if  it 
referred  to  such  specialists.  In  the  Diary  of  the  Rev.  John  Ward,  vicar 
of  Stratford  on  Avon  from  1648  to  1679, — the  book  rendered  famous  by  a 
reminiscence  of  Shakspeare,  for  which  the  poet  would  not  have  thanked 
him, — is  the  following : — 

"Uppon  a  signe  about  Fleet  Bridg  this  is  written, 

'Here  lives  Peter  de  la  Roch  and  George  Goslin,  both  which,  and  no 
other,  are  sworn  operators  to  the  King's  teeth.' " 

Whether  these  operators  had  any  other  calling  than  this  august  office 
does  not  appear.  Early  in  the  next  century,  the  practice  of  dentistry 
seems  to  have  been  in  the  hands  of  silversmiths  and  jewellers.  I  think 
many  of  us  can  recall  the  name  of  a  fellow-citizen,-^originally,  I  think,  a 
watchmaker — who  branched  off,  without  any  special  training,  into  the 
business  of  a  dentist,  and  who  acquired  a  considerable  name  for  filling 
teeth  with  skill  and  success,  taking  time  enough  about  it,  and  receiving  very 
handsome  pay  for  his  services. 

Dentistry  as  a  profession  may  be  safely  said  to  have  come  into  existence 
during  the  present  century.  In  this  country,  its  growth  has  been  of  won- 
derful rapidity.     One  would  have  thought  that  Cadmus  had  sown  a  new 


furrow  full  of  teeth,  and  that  they  had  sprung  up  dentists.  In  1820,  it 
has  been  computed  that  there  were  not  more  than  a  hundred  dentists  in 
the  United  States:  in  1858,  there  were  four  thousand.  I  presume  they 
have  increased  in  as  rapid  a  ratio  since  that  time ;  and,  in  the  mean  while, 
works  on  dentistry,  journals  devoted  to  it,  institutions  for  teaching  it, 
have  become  so  numerous,  that  it  is  recognized  as  one  of  the  great  callings 
of  hfe. 

If  we  would  know  what  we  have  gained  by  the  elevation  of  dentistry 
into  an  honorable  special  branch  of  medical  practice,  we  must  go  back  to 
the  time  when  ignorance,  superstition,  and  bungling  awkwardness,  reigned 
over  the  whole  province  of  art,  now  so  fully  illuminated  by  science,  and  in 
which  such  admirable  mechanical  skill  has  developed  itself  in  every  form 
to  relieve  suffering,  to  supply  deficiencies,  to  add  in  all  possible  ways  to 
comfort  and  comeliness. 

It  is  simply  amusing  to  look  back  two  or  three  centuries,  and  see  what 
men  were  capable  of  believing.  You  will  find  in  Ambroise  Pare  various 
forms  of  words  in  use  in  his  time  to  cure  the  toothache.  The  notion  that 
this  pain  was  caused  by  a  worm,  which  Shakspeare  refers  to,  is  at  least  as 
old  as  Avicenna.  Strange  significance  was  attached  to  an  anomaly  which 
an  old  friend  of  mine  told  me  happened  in  his  own  person :  I  mean  the  same 
fact  that  Richard  the  Third  boasts  of,  namely,  that  he  was  born  with  teeth. 
"A  girl  was  born  at  Picenum  with  six  teeth,"  says  Polydore  Virgil ;  "and 
at  that  time  the  Turks  began  to  capture  our  towns  far  and  wide."  But 
nothing  quite  equals  the  story  of  the  miller's  little  son,  whose  second  molar 
on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  lower  jaw  was  a  golden  one, — as  good,  they 
said,  as  if  a  goldsmith  had  made  it.  Some  pretended  having  seen  the  letters 
CSC  legibly  inscribed  upon  it.  I  have  before  me  a  most  exact  statement 
of  the  facts  of  the  case,  authenticated  by  a  number  of  eminently  respectable 
personages ;  and  I  find  in  Haller's  "Bibliotheca  Anatomica"  various  notices 
of  the  storm  of  controversy  excited  by  the  story  of  this  Silesian  boy  with 
the  golden  tooth.  "What  it  portends,"  says  Laurence  Scholtzius,  "I  do 
not  hesitate  to  declare  is  known  to  God  alone."  It  is  to  this  most  famous 
case  that  Sir  Thomas  Browne  refers,  when  he  says,  speaking  of  the  pre- 
tended difference  of  posture  in  which  drowned  men  and  women  float,  "But 
hereof  we  cease  to  discourse,  lest  we  undertake  to  afford  a  reason  of  the 
golden  tooth ;  that  is.  to  invent  or  assign  a  cause  when  we  remain  un- 
satisfied or  unassured  of  the  event."  And  in  the  margin,  "Of  the  cause 
whereof  much  dispute  was  made,  and  at  last  proved  an  imposture."  All 
this  was  a  good  while  ago ;  but  I  am  myself  old  enough  to  remember  several 
curious  notions  about  the  teeth,  which  had  a  considerable  currency,  and 
came  near  enough  to  being  believed  to  be  told  prett>'  seriously.  If  one  had 
a  tooth  extracted,  it  must  be  burned,  because,  if  a  dog  got  it  and  swallowed 
it,  one  would  have  a  dog's  tooth  come  in  its  place.     I  recollect  a  story  told 

5 


me  of  a  somewhat  noted  public  character,  whose  smile,  or  other  attractions, 
had  made  him  dangerous  to  the  sex  formerly  called  the  weaker  one, — a 
personage  too  well  known  to  the  scandal  of  his  time, — who  was  said  to 
have  had  his  teeth,  or  some  of  them,  extracted  and  replaced  by  those  of  a 
living  animal, — a  calf  or  a  sheep.  This  story  was  told  seriously;  and  the 
hero  of  it  I  have  seen  with  my  own  eyes,  when  age  had  disanned  him  of 
the  fatal  fascinations  of  his  earlier  days.  There  is  a  common  notion 
enough,  still  prevalent,  that  some  persons  have  a  complete  set  of  double 
teeth,  as  they  are  called, — a  jaw  full  of  molars.  I  never  saw  one,  and  I 
doubt  if  anybody  ever  did;  but  the  teeth  of  Indians  and  sailors,  ground 
down  by  the  attrition  of  hard  grains  or  sea-biscuit,  might  be  mistaken  for 
such  a  maleformation. 

It  is  only  since  the  year  1835  that  the  anatomy  of  the  teeth,  out  of 
which  necessarily  arose  new  views  of  their  physiology  and  pathology,  can 
be  said  to  have  been  fairly  understood.  It  is  true  that  old  Leeuwenhoeck 
had  described  the  "pipes,"  as  he  called  them,  of  the  dentine  so  long  ago  as 
the  year  1678;  but  his  discoveries  were  so  much  ahead  of  his  time,  that 
they  had  to  wait  some  generations,  like  the  seven  sleepers,  before  they 
woke  up,  to  find  themselves  confirmed.  An  article  in  "The  British  and 
Foreign  Medical  Review,"  for  the  year  1839,  brought  before  the  profession 
in  England  and  America,  in  a  connected  way,  and  with  illustrative  figures, 
a  series  of  discoveries  which  had  changed  the  whole  aspect  of  dental 
anatomy.  We  owe  all  these  discoveries,  or  rediscoveries,  to  the  invention 
of  the  achromatic  microscope,  which  enables  any  of  us  to  show  the  student 
the  beautiful  intricate  structure  of  the  teeth  as  plainly  as  he  can  see  the 
anatomy  of  the  skeleton  with  the  naked  eye.  You  have  all  studied  the 
exquisite  tubular  arrangement  of  the  dentine;  have  speculated  on  the 
nature  of  the  contents  of  the  tubes,  first  demonstrated  by  Owen  in  the  ele- 
phant; have  examined  the  prisms  of  enamel,  and  the  stellate  cells  of  the 
cementum ;  you  have  seen  the  vascular  systems  of  the  pulp,  and  around  the 
fang,  and  how  they  run  into  each  other;  the  tooth  is  for  you  a  delicately 
organized  living  structure,  carrying  on  nutritive  functions  through  the 
greater  portion  of  its  substance,  and  capable,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  repair- 
ing its  injuries.  To  those  who  studied  Bell's  or  Meckel's  Anatomy,  who  read 
the  works  of  Hunter  or  Fox  on  the  teeth,  all  this  is  a  revelation  which  only 
those  can  fully  appreciate  who  were  born  in  the  benighted  days  of  dental 
heathenism. 

While  the  scientific  basis  of  dental  art  has  made  these  great  advances 
in  modem  days,  the  practice  of  the  art  itself  has  undergone  the  most 
wonderful  transformation.  The  work  of  filling  teeth  has  been  carried  to 
such  perfection,  that  not  only  is  decay  arrested,  and  a  tooth  which  seemed 
destined  to  rapid  destruction  so  repaired  that  it  will  last  a  lifetime,  but, 
where  the  greater  portion  of  a  tooth  was  gone,  it  has  been  built  up,  so  that 


the  miracle  of  the  boy  of  Silesia  is  wrought  every  day  by  mortal  hands;  and 
we  see  a  golden  tooth  in  a  living  mouth  without  fearing  an  invasion  of 
the  Turks,  or  a  war  with  England.  I  suppose  that  the  improvements  in 
this  particular  department  of  dentistry,  the  invention  and  perfecting  of 
mineral  teeth,  their  insertion  on  plates  retained  by  atmospheric  pressure, 
the  substitution  of  the  improved  forceps  for  the  clavis,  and  the  application 
of  anaesthesia  to  extraction,  would  be  considered  the  greatest  achievements 
of  modern  dentistry. 

What  a  change  since  the  time  when  teeth  were  allowed  to  decay  as  if 
they  were  not  worth  the  gold  it  took  to  fill  them  !  What  a  change  from  the 
time  of  those  ghastly  rateliers,  as  the  French  call  them,  carved  in  ivory, 
and  supported  by  springs  that  creaked  with  every  motion  of  the  jaws,  like 
the  thorough-braces  of  an  old-fashioned  stage-coach !  Could  any  thing  be 
less  inviting  to  social  intercourse?  Could  any  thing  be  more  appaling  to 
tender  infancy  than  the  sight  of  one  of  those  dancing-sets  of  artificial  teeth, 
looking  as  if  they  were  ready  to  jump  from  their  owners  mouths,  and 
fasten  upon  one,  as  they  used  to  say  a  turtle's  head  would  do  after  it  was 
cut  off?  iVIr.  Greenwood  of  New  York,  you  may  remember,  carved  a  set 
for  the  Father  of  his  Country ;  and  one  can  hardly  fail  to  see  how  the 
flattened  and  compressed  lips  were  in  a  perpetual  struggle  with  those  loose- 
fitting  arches  and  rebellious  spirals.  Yet  this  was  considered  a  master- 
piece of  dental  workmanship ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  pilgrimages  have 
been  made  to  Mount  Vernon  by  artificers  in  that  line  of  business,  who  left 
with  a  tear  in  one  eye  at  the  sight  of  Washington's  majestic  countenance, 
and  a  twinkle  of  satisfaction  in  the  other  at  the  triumph  achieved  by  Mr. 
Greenwood. 

Contrast  this  state  of  things  with  the  manufacture  of  artificial  mineral 
teeth  as  carried  on  in  this  country,  where  it  has  been  brought  to  its  greatest 
perfection.  More  than  ten  years  ago,  there  were  nine  factories  engaged 
in  their  fabrication,  and  more  than  two  million  teeth  were  made  in  a  year. 
To-day,  I  suppose  they  must  be  made  and  sold  by  the  bushel,  like  the  cereal 
grains;  and,  if  the  great  factories  required  elevators  to  handle  their  pro- 
ducts, it  would  hardly  surprise  us.  Compare  the  delicately-tinted,  ex- 
quisitely-shaped porcelain  incisors  with  those  frightful  ivory  palisades  that 
used  to  play  up  and  down  like  a  portcullis  in  a  manner  to  terrify  all  be- 
holders. In  fact,  the  perfection  of  artificial  teeth  is  carried  almost  too  far. 
They  have  come  to  be  for  the  inside  of  the  head  what  the  wig  was  for  its 
outside  in  the  days  of  our  ancestors.  It  was  so  much  more  convenient  to 
have  a  head  of  hair  that  one  could  whisk  on  and  ofif  in  a  moment;  one  that 
never  grew  gray ;  one  that  was  just  the  shade  the  owner  fancied,  that  was 
always  in  curl,  that  could  be  laid  aside  in  hot  weather  to  let  the  cool  breeze 
play  over  the  naked  scalp  (a  luxury  which  Adam  never  knew  in  Paradise, 
and  coming  about  as  near  to  "sitting  in  one's  bones"  as  is  practicable  while 


we  are  in  the  flesh), — all  this  was  so  much  more  convenient  and  comfort- 
able than  the  arrangement  provided  by  Nature,  that  the  wig  reigned  undis- 
puted for  generations,  and  will,  not  very  improbably,  return  to  bless  man- 
kind before  our  children's  children  are  bald  and  gray.  So  with  the  artificial 
teeth  of  this  dental  millennium  in  which  it  is  our  good  fortune  to  live.  They 
are  comely;  they  never  ache;  they  are  contented  with  their  situation,  and 
keep  their  place,  which  is  more  than  we  can  say  of  most  of  our  living 
servants;  they  undergo  no  changes  in  the  mouth;  they  admit  of  the  nicest 
personal  proprieties ;  they  serve  perfectly  for  articulation ;  and  though  one 
can  hardly  crack  a  peachstone  with  them,  as  some  can  with  their  native 
molars,  or  use  them  for  biting  off  the  heads  of  iron  nails,  as  used  to  be  told 
of  Ethan  Allen,  they  can  do  good  service  in  the  respectable  and  responsible 
duties  of  mastication.  The  consequence  of  all  this  is,  that  people  are  only 
too  ready  to  have  their  natural  teeth  shelled  from  their  gums  like  so  many 
grains  of  Indian-corn  from  the  cob,  and  a  complete  mouthful  of  artificial 
make  inserted  in  their  place.  You  miss  your  friend  for  a  little  time :  he  is 
in  his  chamber,  with  his  jaws  tied  up,  perusing  "Zimmermann  on  Solitude" 
for  a  few  days:  suffering  from  toothache  is  the  figurative  language  in 
which  his  condition  is  announced.  When  he  returns  to  society,  he  has  re- 
covered his  youth  like  Aeson  in  the  hands  of  Medea ;  and  his  smile  is  a 
glittering  welcome,  a  mineral  benediction,  which  it  is  a  joy  forever  to  have 
been  blest  with.  Think,  again,  what  that  preliminary  process  of  edentation 
would  have  been  in  the  days  when  the  rustic  patient  complained  that  he 
had  to  pay  as  much  as  his  neighbor,  who  had  been  dragged  three  times 
round  the  loom  before  the  tooth  came  out.  There  never  was  a  claw  on 
bird  or  beast  that  was  the  cause  of  such  anguish  of  apprehension,  such 
howls  of  agony,  as  that  diabolical  instrument,  looking  like  a  vulture's  talon, 
but  known  by  the  name  of  the  key.  It  was  a  key  indeed :  it  may  have 
opened  the  door  of  heaven  to  the  sufiferer  in  due  time;  but,  while  the  bolt 
was  turning,  the  victim  thought  he  was  in  that  other  place,  where  the  man 
must  be  who  invented  the  instrument  of  torture.  No7v  a  patient  comes  in ; 
takes  a  few  whiffs  of  an  anaesthetic;  has  a  dozen  or  more  teeth  submitted 
to  the  embrace  of  the  gentlemanly  forceps,  which  lift  them  from  their 
sockets  as  one  takes  out  the  pegs  of  a  solitaire-board, — say,  rather,  as  a 
father  lifts  his  first-born  infant, — comes  to;  stares  about  him;  asks  when 
they  are  going  to  begin;  is  told  that  it  is  all  over;  bursts  into  tears  of 
hysteric  gratitude;  kisses  the  smiling  dentist;  wants  to  hug  all  mankind, 
and  make  the  human  race  happy  at  once ;  sobers  down  presently,  ties  up  his 
face,  and  takes  to  retirement  and  Zimmermann  for  a  season,  as  before 
mentioned. 

I  have  seen  something,  as,  probably,  most  of  us  have,  of  the  practical 
skill  of  dentists ;  but,  in  alluding  to  some  of  the  more  important  recent  ad- 
vances of  the  dental  profession,  I  was  unwilling  to  trust  my  own  fortunately 


limited  experience,  and  have  consulted  my  friends,  Dr.  Moffatt  of  this  city, 
and  Dr.  McQuillen  of  Philadelphia,  the  late  editor  of  the  journal  known 
as  "The  Dental  Cosmos,"  both  of  whom  have  kindly  favored  me  with  their 
own  independent  opinions  as  to  late  improvements. 

The  use  of  the  mallet  in  filling  teeth,  every  blow  of  which  instrument 
is  a  fractional  knock  on  the  head  to  the  patient  equal  to  about  one  hun- 
dredth of  that  which  a  slayer  of  cattle  gives  to  a  full-grown  ox  to  finish 
him,  but  which,  being  taken  in  divided  doses,  allows  the  sufferer  to  escape 
with  life, — the  use  of  the  mallet,  automatic  or  other,  far  from  agreeable 
as  it  is,  is  considered  a  vast  accession  to  the  art  of  dentistry.  Every  man 
must  be  anvil  or  sledge,  says  Goethe ;  and  it  is  quite  plain  that  our  friends 
the  dentists  have  settled  it  so  far  as  they  and  we  are  concerned. 

Nothing  has  excited  my  admiration  more  than  the  wonderful  drills, 
moved  by  the  foot,  or  any  other  power  which  may  be  preferred,  finding 
their  way  into  every  corner  of  the  mouth  with  a  sinuous  grace  of  movement 
such  as  the  serpent  displayed  for  the  fascination  of  our  unfortunate  first 
parent,  and  making  their  way  into  the  solid  dental  substance  with  a  rapidity 
from  which  the  engineers  of  the  Hoosac  Tunnel  might  borrow  a  most 
significant  lesson. 

The  employment  of  sponge  gold  for  certain  purposes,  and  the  use  of 
heat  to  develop  the  cohesive  properties  of  the  metal,  have  enabled  the 
dentist  to  perform  those  remarkable  feats  of  building  up  a  tooth  from  its 
ruins,  to  which  I  have  before  referred. 

The  public  seems  hardly  to  appreciate  the  very  great  value  of  the 
cement  fillings, — both  the  oxide  of  zinc  and  the  gutta-percha, — either  of 
which  is  capable  of  preserving  for  long  use  a  tooth  too  infirm  to  bear  fiilling 
with  gold. 

The  use  of  sheet  India-rubber  to  protect  a  tooth  from  moisture  while 
being  filled  is  another  most  valuable  innovation. 

I  learn  that  even  exposed  pulps  may  be  protected  by  artificial  means, 
and  thus  a  tooth  saved  as  a  living  organ  from  an  almost  hopeless  condition. 

Important  as  are  these  mechanical  inventions,  the  growth  of  dental 
associations,  educational  institutions  and  journals,  mark  a  still  more  general 
advance  of  the  profession.  I  have  known  something  of  the  teachers  of 
the  art,  of  their  zeal,  their  capacity,  their  disinterested  desire  for  the  eleva- 
tion of  their  calling.  I  have  for  years  been  a  frequent  reader  of  "The 
Dental  Cosmos,"  and  I  can  bear  testimony  to  the  great  intelligence  with 
which  it  has  been  edited.  I  have  found  in  its  pages  much  information,  of 
interest  and  value,  that  I  have  never  met  with  elsewhere ;  and  I  have  seen 
a  great  many  medical  journals  with  a  broader  titlepage  and  a  vastly  nar- 
rower table  of  contents.  Yet  this  is  but  one  of  five  dental  journals  pub- 
lished in  the  United  States;  and  at  least  as  many  are  published  in  other 
countries.     It  is  from  a  living  and  wide-awake  profession,  then,  that  the 


new  faculty  is  invited  to  share  with  us  the  honorable  task  of  teaching; 
and  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  community  will  encourage,  and  it  may  be 
hoped  in  due  time  liberally  endow,  the  infant  offspring  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, now  cutting  its  first  teeth  with  every  promise  of  health  and  vigor. 

The  picture  of  old  age  drawn  in  Ecclesiastes  is  wonderfully  impres- 
sive,— all  the  more  so  in  consequence  of  the  obscurity  of  some  of  its  images. 
But  we  all  know  what  the  Preacher  means  when  he  speaks  of  the  drawing- 
nigh  of  the  years  when  we  shall  say  there  is  no  pleasure  in  them,  and  of 
the  day  when  the  grinders  shall  cease  because  they  are  few,  and  those 
that  look  out  of  the  window  shall  be  darkened.  There  were  no  dentists 
in  those  days  to  rejuvenate  the  old  man  with  a  third  dentition.  There  were 
no  opticians  to  supply  his  failing  vision  with  the  second  eyes  of  old  age. 
The  aged  people  seem  to  have  been  in  a  most  forlorn  condition  at  a  time 
when  the  men  of  today  not  rarely  have  a  good  deal  of  vitality  left,  and 
enjoy  life,  and  help  to  make  others  enjoy  it.  To  us  who  remember  the 
late  Josiah  Quincy  and  Dr.  James  Jackson  long  after  they  were  eighty 
years  old,  who  knew  something,  by  report,  of  Lord  Lyndhurst  and  Lord 
Brougham  in  their  later  years,  it  seems  strange  to  hear  Barzillai  say  to 
King  David,  "I  am  this  day  fourscore  years  old ;  and  can  I  discern  between 
good  and  evil?  can  thy  servant  taste  what  I  eat  or  what  I  drink?  can  I 
hear  the  voice  of  singing  men  and  singing  women?" 

But  what  would  old  age  be  to  a  great  number  of  persons  without  the 
aid  of  the  dentist  and  the  optician?  The  worn-out  laboring  man,  unused 
to  books,  and  with  limited  capacity  for  social  intercourse,  may  get  along 
well  enough,  perhaps,  with  his  pipe,  and  his  seat  in  the  sunshine  or  by  the 
fireside.  Father  Abraham  may  not  have  felt  the  need  of  spectacles :  he 
went  to  bed  early,  no  doubt ;  there  was  no  daily  newspaper  to  read ;  and  he 
did  not  shave.  But  what  would  become  of  the  scholar,  or  of  persons  of 
any  cultivation  in  our  days,  who  at  fifty  or  sixty  should  find  themselves 
cut  off  from  reading,  and,  not  improbably,  rendered  unpresentable,  or  at 
least  miserably  uncomfortable,  in  society,  in  consequence  of  imperfect 
articulation?  The  care  of  the  eyes  is  therefore  recognized  as  one  of  the 
most  important  specialties  in  medicine,  and  the  study  of  ophthalmology  has 
engaged  some  of  the  most  distinguished  professional  talent  in  this  country 
as  well  as  in  Europe.  The  province  of  dentistry  is  only  second  in  im- 
portance to  the  other  domain  of  medical  science  and  art,  and  rivals  it  in  the 
intelligence  and  activity  of  those  who  teach  and  practise  it.  In  one  respect, 
it  is  of  greater  public  interest  than  the  other  branch :  most  children's  and 
young  persons'  teeth  require  positive  attention;  whereas  their  eyes,  in  the 
great  majority  of  cases,  take  tolerable  care  of  themselves.  I  think  there  are 
twelve  times  as  many  dentists  in  this  city  as  there  arCiOculists.  If  every 
one  had  twenty  eyes  in  the  early  part  of  his  life,  and  thirty-two  when  full 
grown,  the  number  of  oculists  and  dentists  might  be  more  nearly  equal. 

10 


The  branch  of  the  medical  profession  to  which  this  graduating  class 
has  devoted  itself  has  not  taken  its  proper  position  until  within  a  compara- 
tively recent  period;  but,  in  this  respect,  it  has  been  no  worse  off  than 
other  branches  in  former  times,  or  than  the  entire  profession  at  some  periods 
of  its  history.  The  Romans  contrived  to  live  without  doctors  for  some 
five  hundred  years :  when  they  got  them  at  last,  they  were  slaves, — Greeks, 
for  the  most  part, — and  kept  as  appendages  of  a  great  man's  establishment, 
as  he  kept  a  cook  or  other  servant. 

The  worthy  vicar  of  Stratford  fin  Avon,  to  whom  I  have  before  re- 
ferred, gives  us  some  very  curious  information  as  to  the  state  of  the  medical 
profession  in  England  in  his  own  time  and  before  it.  A  few  paragraphs 
are  worth  quoting: — 

"The  Saxons  had  their  blood-letters,  but  under  the  Normans  physick 
begunne  in  England ;  300  years  agoe  it  was  not  a  distinct  profession  by 
itself,  but  practisd  by  men  in  orders,  witness  Nicholas  de  Ternham,  the 
chief  English  physitian  and  Bishop  of  Durham;  Hugh  of  Evesham,  a 
physician  and  cardinal ;  Grysant  physician  and  pope ;  John  Chambers 
Doctor  of  Physick,  was  the  first  Bishop  of  Peterborough;  Paul  Bush,  a 
bachelor  of  divinitie  in  Oxford  was  well  read  in  physick  as  well  as  divin- 
itie,  hee  was  the  first  Bishop  of  Bristol."  "In  King  Richard  the  Second's 
time  physitians  and  divines  were  not  distinct  professions ;  for  one  Tydeman, 
Bishop  of  Landaph  and  Worcester,  was  physician  to  King  Richard  the 
Second."  And  again :  "Edmund,  Earl  of  Derby,  who  dyed  in  Queen 
Elizabeth's  days,  was  famous  for  chirurgerie,  bonesetting  and  hospitalitie." 

We  may  be  sure  that  all  this  meant  a  very  low  condition  of  medical 
knowledge.  And  this  opinion  is  confirmed  by  what  is  found  in  the  same 
Diary  a  few  pages  farther  on. 

"Dr.  Sydenham  is  writing  a  book  which  will  bring  physicians  about 
his  ears,  to  decrie  the  usefulness  of  natural  philosophic,  and  to  maintaine 
the  necessitie  of  knowledg  in  anatomic  in  subordination  to  physick. 

"Physick,  says  Sydenham,  is  not  to  be  learned  by  going  to  Universities, 
but  hee  is  for  taking  apprentices ;  and  says  one  had  as  good  send  a  man  to 
Oxford  to  learn  shoemaking  as  practising  physick." 

There  were  other  heretics  besides  Sydenham;  for,  as  Mr.  Ward  tells 
us,  "Some  have  said  that  physick  is  no  art  at  all,  nor  worthy  of  the  name  of 
a  liberall  science,  as  Peter  And.  Canonherius,  a  practitioner  at  Rome,  en- 
deavored to  prove  by  sixteen  arguments." 

The  vicar  himself  practised  physic,  as  well  as  preached,  like  others  of 
his  clerical  brethren.  We  find  from  him  that  quarrelling  and  quackery 
were  quite  as  common  then  as  now.  The  university-teaching  which  Syden- 
ham spoke  of  with  such  contempt  was,  of  course,  the  book-learning  of  the 
time,  and  not  the  practical  instruction  of  later  days.  Much  as  we  have 
gained,  the  following  words  from  the  Diary  are  not  so  far  from  truth 
to-day  as  they  might  be : — 

11 


"There  are  several  sorts  of  Physitians,  said  one ;  first,  those  that  canne 
talk  but  doe  nothing;  secondly,  some  that  can  doe  but  not  talk;  third, 
some  that  can  both  doe  and  talk;  fourthly,  some  that  can  neither  doe  nor 
talk,  and  these  get  most  monie. 

"Some  doctors  have  a  noble  out  of  a  pound  of  their  apothecaries;  as 
Dr.  Wright;  many  (have)  a  crowne,  as  an  apothecarie  in  London  told  me." 

In  this  last  sentence,  and  in  the  fact  that  the  English  "general  practi- 
tioner," so  called,  has  charged,  not  for  his  advice,  but  for  his  pills  and 
potions,  lies  the  secret  of  that  disgraceful  drugging  system  which  has  racked 
the  entrails  of  Englishmen  from  generation  to  generation;  which  we  in- 
herited from  the  mother-country;  and  which  is  fast  giving  way  to  those 
more  rational  views,  in  which  healthy  nutrition,  and  the  skilful  alleviation 
of  symptoms,  are  taking  the  place  of  the  exhausting  depletions  and  specific 
poisons  supposed  necessary  to  the  cure  of  disease.  In  spite  of  this  corrupt- 
ing influence,  English  medical  science  and  art  asserted  themselves  succes- 
sively in  men  like  Linacre,  Harvey,  Sydenham,  and  Mead,  and  the  practi- 
tioners who  confined  themselves  to  medical,  in  distinction  from  surgical, 
practice,  so  as  to  deserve  the  eulogies  of  such  personages  as  Dryden  and 
Pope,  of  Johnson  and  Parr  and  Blackstone. 

But  chirurgery — medical  hand-work — fared  very  differently.  No 
longer  ago  than  when  President  Holyoke,  whose  son,  the  venerable  physi- 
cian, some  of  us  well  remember,  entered  upon  the  duties  of  his  office,  and 
for  years  after  that  time,  the  London  Company  of  Barber-Surgeons  were 
holding  their  meetings  at  their  hall  in  Monkwell  Street;  and  it  was  not  till 
very  near  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  that  the  surgeons  were  incorporated 
as  a  separate  body.  It  was  about  the  same  time,  that  is,  during  the  reign 
of  George  the  Second,  that  the  question  was  discussed  in  open  court,  before 
the  chief  justice  of  England,  whether  a  surgeon  was  an  "inferior  tradesman," 
within  the  meaning  of  a  certain  statue  of  William  and  Mary.  But  we  must 
remember  in  what  contempt  other  of  the  most  useful  occupations  were  held 
so  long  as  society  was  enslaved  by  its  feudal  traditions.  Traffic  and  agri- 
culture were  scorned  by  the  descendants  of  the  Norman  robbers,  until  they 
were  starved  into  better  views  and  more  civil  language  than  they  had 
inherited. 

"The  toiling  tradesman  and  the  sweating  clown 
Would  have  his  wench  fair,  though  his  bread  be  brown," 
says  Michael  Drayton  in  the  poetical  epistle  of  Edward  Fourth  to  Mistress 
Jane  Shore.     And  now  the  great  nobles  of  Britain  are  very  glad  to  turn  an 
honest  penny  by  traffic,  instead  of  taking  it  by  force  from  their  neighbors. 
The  Duke  of  Norfolk  deals  in  malt; 
"Lord  Stafford  mines  for  coal  and  salt; 
The  Douglas,  in  red  herrings." 

12 


One  son  of  the  Duke  of  Argyle  marries  the  queen's  daughter;  and  the  other 
comes  to  New  York,  and  goes  into  a  trading-establishment.  In  this  country, 
more  especially,  the  useful  arts  have  no  right  to  complain  of  their  want 
of  fair  recognition.  If  we  do  not  absolutely  forbid  idleness,  our  rich 
men  and  women  who  live  for  amusement  only  are  very  apt  to  find  them- 
selves uncomfortable  until  they  can  get  out  of  a  country  where  there  are 
bounties  granted  to  fishermen,  and  nothing  but  taxes  for  gentlemen  of 
leisure. 

The  movement  of  civilization  is  a  perpetual  struggle  between  the  arts 
of  destruction  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  of  construction  and  conservation 
on  the  other.  All  that  the  earth  teaches  us  of  man  in  the  earlier  periods  of 
his  ascertained  existence  shows  him  to  have  been  a  fighting  cannibal,  who 
cracked  the  bones  of  his  deceased  relatives,  to  get  their  marrow,  with  the 
same  pious  satisfaction  his  descendant  shows  in  breaking  the  seal  of  a  last 
will  and  testament.  The  best  man  among  savages  is  the  one  who  swings 
the  heaviest  club,  and  has  eaten  the  largest  number  of  his  enemies,  or  who 
carries  most  scalps  at  his  girdle.  It  is  somewhat  better  in  our  day ;  but  the 
ideal  state  of  society  is  not  yet  made  quite  real.  The  fighting  man  is  still 
the  one  most  honored  by  the  world.  Even  the  phraseology  of  our  religion, 
which  points  to  the  Lord  of  hosts  and  the  Captain  of  our  salvation,  shows 
us  how  deeply-rooted  is  that  feeling  of  the  supreme  excellence  of  a  military 
title,  which  we  inherit  from  the  man-eating  troglodytes. 

But  the  modern  movement,  in  its  truest  form,  insists  that  mutual 
destruction  is  not  the  chief  end  of  man.  Even  the  fighting  Romans  had 
got  so  far  as  to  decree  that  the  oak-leaf  garland,  ob  cives  servatos,  should 
take  precedence  of  the  conqueror's  laurel.  And  Christian  civilization  is 
ready  to  acknowledge,  to-day,  that  the  only  really  noble  warfare  is  that 
against  the  evils  which  beset  the  race.  Men  must  be  slain  for  a  long  time, 
always  perhaps,  in  the  greater  conflicts  of  right  and  wrong;  but  humanity 
confesses,  that,  apart  from  the  righteous  end  to  be  attained,  a  bloody  victory 
is  only  a  less  calamity  than  a  bloody  defeat. 

The  arts  of  peace  are  gaining  in  consideration  over  the  arts  of  war, 
slowly,  we  must  own,  but  steadily.  And,  if  any  one  of  these  arts  of  peace 
should  have  appeared  entitled  to  the  highest  consideration  of  a  civilized 
people,  it  would  seem  to  be  that  which  professes  to  relieve  suffering,  and 
prolong  life.  So  it  would  have  been  if  medicine  could  have  done  all  that 
was  asked  of  it.  The  physician  would  have  been  held  only  second  to  the 
Deity,  had  he  not  too  frequently  disappointed  the  expectations  of  those  who 
were  ready  to  worship  him.  This  always  was  and  always  will  be.  The 
children  of  Israel  complained  that  they  had  to  make  bricks  without  straw; 
the  physician  has  to  make  bricks  without  clay.  Many  of  the  patients  that 
come  to  him  had  never  any  physiological  right  to  live  at  all.  They  are  not 
much  nearer  to  the  true  human  pattern  than  that  same  starved  Justice 

13 


Shallow,  who  was  like  a  man  made  after  supper  of  a  cheese-paring ;  when 
he  was  naked,  for  all  the  world  like  a  forked  radish.  And  they  come  com- 
plaining that  they  are  not  in  condition  to  run  ten  miles  within  the  hour, 
or  fight  the  champion  of  the  heavy  weights  for  the  prize  belt.  It  has  taken 
a  dozen  sickly  generations  to  breed  them  down  to  constitutional  invalidism, 
and  they  want  a  pill  or  powder  to  set  them  all  right  again.  Or  they  come 
to  the  physician  at  fifty  or  sixty,  wrecks  of  fine  constitutions,  got  up 
originally  without  regard  to  expense,  btit  burned  out  with  strong  drink, 
and  browned  to  the  marrow  with  narcotics  and  nicotics,  and  want  back 
the  virginity  of  their  sodden  and  corrugated  tissues.  Or,  it  may  be,  some 
desperate  and  violent  malady  has  stabbed  them  to  the  death ;  and,  because 
no  one  has  seen  a  hand  with  a  poniard  in  it,  the  patients  or  their  friends 
think  that  some  drop  or  potion  will  undo  the  mortal  eflfect  of  the  invisible 
dagger-stroke. 

These  inevitable  disappointments  have  kept  the  medical  profession  from 
receiving  that  degree  of  confidence  and  of  honor  to  which  its  noble  function 
seemed  to  entitle  it.  It  does  its  best ;  but  that  is  not  enough  for  the  eager 
demand  of  men  for  health,  and  length  of  days.  Hence  the  great  number 
of  pretenders  and  pretentious  systems  which  profess  to  be  able  to  meet 
this  want.  Men,  and,  still  more,  women,  wish  to  be  deceived;  and  it  be- 
comes  a  lucrative  trade  to  promise  cures,  as  it  was  to  promise  gold  in  the 
days  of  the  alchemists. 

"Spondent  quas  non  exhibent  divitias,  pauperes  alchimistse." 
In  spite  of  all  the  obstacles  which  meet  those  who  give  their  lives  to 
the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  without  regard  to  the  prejudices  it  disturbs, 
science  was  never  honored  as  it  is  in  our  time ;  and  the  science  of  life  was 
never  studied  as  at  the  present  day, — never  with  such  an  apparatus  of  re- 
search, never  with  such  concentration  of  talent  on  special  investigations, 
never  with  such  hope  of  resolving  the  most  difficult  problems  within 
the  reach  of  human  faculties.  Considered  merely  as  a  study,  medicine  is 
a  great  and  profoundly  interesting  branch  of  science;  but  having  regard 
to  the  interests  it  deals  with, — life  and  death,  well-being  and  misery,  the 
conditions  of  mind  and  body,  the  happiness  or  wretchedness  of  whole 
communities, — we  can  hardly  wonder,  that,  in  early  ages,  a  divine  origin 
was  assigned  to  it,  and  that  he  who  is  called  the  Lord  of  hosts  is  also  spoken 
of  by  the  nobler  title  of  the  Healer  of  the  land  and  of  the  people. 

Your  profession,  young  gentlemen,  is  now  an  accepted  province  of  this 
great  and  beneficent  calling.  It  has  shared  the  effects  of  that  onward 
movement  which  has  asserted  for  the  arts  of  peace  the  dignified  position  to 
which  they  are  entitled.  You  are  bound,  in  your  turn,  to  reflect  honor 
on  the  institution  which  has  invested  you  with  authority  to  go  forth  as 
its  representatives  in  the  domain  of  your  special  duties.  The  diploma 
you  have  received  is  a  certificate  of  your    fitness    for    these    duties;    but 

14 


it  implies  a  promise  that  you  will  try  to  do  credit  to  those  who  stand 
sponsors  for  you  as  you  are  christened  with  your  new  title.  Harvard 
University  is  doing  all  it  can  do  to  recognize  the  value  of  your  profession 
to  the  community ;  and  it  does  this  at  the  time  when  it  is  making  the  most 
strenuous  efforts  to  place  medical  education  on  a  basis  worthy  of  a  branch 
of  knowledge  so  complex,  so  vast,  so  all  important  to  mankind.  That  open 
volume  with  Veritas  inscribed  upon  it  should  be,  and  it  is,  carried  at  the 
figure-head  of  the  argosy  of  our  American  intellectual  progress.  Our 
university  always  was,  and  must  be,  a  leader  in  educational  movements. 
She  is  waiting  for  those  to  follow  that  dare,  to  pass  her  that  can;  and,  if 
any  drop  astern,  she  must  wave  them  a  courteous  salute,  and  leave  them. 

And  now,  gentlemen,  we  bid  you  God-speed  as  you  go  from  these  halls 
to  exercise  your  talents  which  have  been  here  trained,  and  apply  the 
knowledge  which  has  been  here  imparted  to  you.  May  you  find  the  public 
ready  to  appreciate  and  reward  your  skill ;  and  so  acquit  yourselves,  that 
the  ear  which  hears  you  shall  bless  you;  and  the  eye  that  sees  you  bear 
witness  to  you ;  that  the  smiles  of  innumerable  friends  may  reveal  to  you 
the  perfection  of  your  own  handiwork;  and  your  praise  be  in  all  the 
mouths  of  a  grateful  community ! 


15 


oJOI-UMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBftARIFS  ( 

HK66H73  1919  C  1 

The  d.ii: 


>i^ 


2002449498 


<m 


